Ruth Sunderland's Business Comment + US economy | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/business/series/ruth-sunderlands-business-comment+useconomy
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Obama's bank reforms will plug a financial black hole | Ruth Sunderlandhttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/jan/24/obama-banks-reform
We supporters of the US's Glass-Steagall Act used to be regarded as eccentrics. Now the most powerful man in the world is backing it<p>Not so long ago, fans of ­bringing back the Glass-Steagall Act – American Depression-era legislation that separated utility banking from casino speculation – were considered members of an eccentric and tiny minority.</p><p>Now the most powerful man in the world, Barack Obama, has joined our club. His new best friend is the octogenarian former head of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, who advocates a return to the spirit of Glass-Steagall. The return of Volcker comes at the expense of treasury secretary Tim Geithner, who is widely perceived as being aligned with Wall Street's monied elite.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/jan/24/obama-banks-reform">Continue reading...</a>BankingRegulatorsFinancial crisisBusinessObama administrationUS economySun, 24 Jan 2010 00:05:44 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/jan/24/obama-banks-reformPhotograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty ImagesPaul Volcker listens as President Barack Obama outlines his financial reforms. Obama plans to limit the size and scope of US banks. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty ImagesPhotograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty ImagesPaul Volcker listens as President Barack Obama outlines his financial reforms. Obama plans to limit the size and scope of US banks. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty ImagesRuth Sunderland2010-01-24T00:05:44ZDole queues longer even than the 1980shttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/dec/07/credit-crunch-dole-job-losses
<p>This is only the beginning. Thousands of UK job losses were announced last week and the latest US payroll figures were so awful they exceeded forecasters' worst imaginings. Bad news, for sure, but I fear worse is to come. </p><p>The frightening thing about the US labour force figures was not only that more than 160,000 jobs were lost in construction and manufacturing, which have been contracting for some time, but also the sudden implosion of service sector employment, which shrank by 370,000 in November. As my colleague Heather Stewart points out, the financial sector contagion is now poisoning the lifeblood of the real economy. The credit crunch has made it incredibly expensive for companies to raise cash on the capital markets, so they are reining in on costs; the charts suggest that up to a million jobs a month will be lost in the US. Business investment there has fallen off a cliff, dropping at a rate equivalent almost to an annual 20 per cent, again pointing to a much more severe recession than previously hoped. The notion that this crisis could be quarantined within the financial markets was never convincing and has now been exposed as a last desperate bout of irrational exuberance.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/dec/07/credit-crunch-dole-job-losses">Continue reading...</a>Credit crunchUnemployment and employment statisticsRecessionUS economic growth and recessionUS economyBusinessWork & careersMoneySun, 07 Dec 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/dec/07/credit-crunch-dole-job-lossesRuth Sunderland2008-12-07T00:01:00ZRuth Sunderland: Stability? That was a lifetime ago, Darlinghttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/mar/16/useconomy.economics
<p>It is only a few days since Alistair Darling delivered his budget, but it seems like a lifetime ago. The Chancellor has been totally eclipsed by the drama on Wall Street, which has followed the classic narrative arc of a horror film - just when you think it's safe to leave the cinema, you are made to jump out of your skin again. </p><p>America is having its own Northern Rock moment - with knobs on - over the bail-out of investment bank Bear Stearns, sending the credit crunch into a new and more frightening phase. Confidence has leached out of the US economy, sending the dollar to record lows and gold, that perennial safe-haven investment, to record highs. Events in the US have made Darling, with his metronomic insistence on the stability of our economy, sound like a Dr Pangloss Chancellor. In common with the tirelessly optimistic character in Voltaire's Candide, he wants to convince us that we are living in the best of all possible worlds, despite the weight of evidence to the contrary.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/mar/16/useconomy.economics">Continue reading...</a>US economyEconomicsMarks & SpencerRetail industryBusinessUS newsBudget 2008BudgetPoliticsBudget 2008Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:04:07 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/mar/16/useconomy.economicsRuth Sunderland2008-03-16T00:04:07ZAnd the good news is ... hard to findhttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jan/06/creditcrunch.useconomy
<p>It is hard to recapture the mood of this time last year. In January 2007, the City was still riding high, private equity was still on its buying spree, shoppers were still spending, house prices still soaring and Gordon Brown was still hailed as a paragon of economic competence. Northern Rock still seemed a decent bank; it delighted shareholders by kicking off the reporting season with a hike in its dividend, largely in anticipation of new rules that would allow it to hold less capital. </p><p>All that is now a rose-tinted memory. The question is not whether 2008 will be a bad year - it is how bad. </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jan/06/creditcrunch.useconomy">Continue reading...</a>Credit crunchUS economyEconomicsBusinessSun, 06 Jan 2008 23:40:18 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jan/06/creditcrunch.useconomyRuth Sunderland2008-01-06T23:40:18Z